I was really hoping to like this book. I was disappointed however. The characters were not well defined or built. The relationship between Valerie and her mother isn't explored well enough to elicit the type of response that Valerie expressed. Valerie isn't well defined either to explain why she would choose to go so far off the deep end over one incident. The sudden unexplained feelings between Ravus and Valerie also seemed dis-jointed and unaccounted for within the story, a sideways glance or two doesn't constitute undying love. I feel that the author could have done so much more with this story if time was taken to fully develop the characters. The plot is interesting but moves along in fits and starts. I'll continue to read this author because I believe that there is the good beginnings of great writing; I just hope to see it. ( )

Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black. Some interesting ideas. Fairly suspenseful. However, I thought it odd that a seventeen-year-old would have unprotected sex and share a needle while taking a new drug with no mention of pregnancy, HIV, or any STDS. Addiction was very lightly mentioned. It was all too casual, I felt, for a Young Adult book. ( )

Lots of bad language, lots of drug use, lots of weird troll/fairy/freak oddities. I did finally sort of get into it about 2/3 the way through. Just really weird and not my genre. This teen stuff is tuff stuff!

Nothing farther then he uttered -- not a feather than he fluttered --Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before --On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

-EDGAR ALLAN POE, "THE RAVEN"

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

-PHILIP K. DICK

To these I turn, in these I trust -Brother Lead and Sister Steel.

-SIEGFRIED SASSOON, THE OLD HUNTSMAN AND OTHER POEMS

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightwe drink you at morning and midday we drink you at eveningwe drink and we drink

-PAUL CELAN, "DEATH FUGUE"

Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

-WILLIAM BLAKE, "THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL"

They love not poison that do poison need.

-WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, RICHARD II

Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply do not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years.

-G. K. CHESTERTON, ORTHODOXY

And her sweet red lips on these lips of mineBurned like the ruby fire setIn the swinging lamp of a crimson shrineOr the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wetWith the split-out blood of the rose-red wine.

-OSCAR WILDE, "IN THE GOLD ROOM: A HARMONY"

Immediately after the monsters, die the heroes.

-ROBERTO CALASSO, THE MARRIAGE OF CADMUS AND HARMONY

All human beings should try and learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

-JAMES THURBER

Dedication

For my husband, Theo, because he likes angsty, angry girls

First words

The tree woman choked on poison, the slow sap of her blood burning.

Quotations

Last words

Leather-clad fingers brushed over her short hair, rested on ehr cheek. "I can hold my breath."

Wikipedia in English (1)

When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.

But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends. And when one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature with whom they are all involved, Val finds herself torn between her newfound affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.